Michigan

Flint Journal sends plea for firefighter funding to federal officials

Flint firefighter Rahshemeer Neal sprays water to the side of an apartment building to keep it from warping and catching fire while battling a fully-engulfed apartment building inferno early Wednesday morning, Feb. 5, 2014 at Atherton East apartments in Flint, where several people were displaced after an apartment building was destroyed by the blaze. Jake May | MLive.com

Never play with fire. We all learn that at a young age. â Flint Mayor Dayne Walling

Every member of Michigan’s congressional delegation, both U.S. senators and the Federal Emergency Management Agency will receive copies of The Flint Journal featuring all of our reports analyzing the importance of renewing federal firefighter funding.

It is the latest component of our SAFER grant coverage, which has included a front-page editorial and special news coverage of the grant. This column explains the reason behind it:

•••

This is just too important.

This is too important to sit back and wait. This is too important to stay silent.

Time is running out on Flint’s ability to get an unprecedented third federal grant that would fund 39 firefighters in the city with plummeting property values, declining population and the highest rate of arsons among large cities nationwide.

The city is asking for another $7.9 million Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response grant. Called a SAFER, already $273 million of the $337 million pool of funding has been used to fund programming costs and fire departments nationwide – the vast, vast majority of which are settled in communities that are more stable and less in need than the city of Flint. The remaining $64 million continues to be slowly doled out and is expected to be tapped out in the coming weeks, maybe months.

Still, we need to realize we’ve been lucky – lucky enough to be granted SAFER grants twice before to shore up our department. Two years ago, it was the first time a city had been twice awarded a SAFER grant.

Now, we’re going for three.

It’s unprecedented. It’s a daunting. It’s devastating if the city does not get its grant award.

And, we want to make sure everyone knows it.

We launched a special project earlier this month looking at SAFER and its importance to our community. We kicked it off with a front-page editorial calling for federal officials to renew the grant and showing exactly how badly the city needed it. We’ve followed that up with news reports on how the loss of the grant would impact our residents, the strain it would put on the fire department and coming Sunday a critical look at what it will take to wean the city off such special funding.

Also adding their voices to the call for a renewal were:

• Mayor Dayne Walling: “Never play with fire. We all learn that at a young age. We all hope that FEMA follows this simple fire prevention rule and renews Flint’s SAFER grant. Flint can’t endure another flare up.”

• U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Flint Twp.: “If any community has demonstrated a persistent need for a SAFER grant, it’s Flint.”

• About 700 people – with more being added every day – who signed our online petition calling for SAFER to be renewed. About half of those who signed identified themselves as from Flint. Most other petition signers came from suburban Genesee County, but a few came from far and wide including Orlando, Pittsburg and Dallas. The list of names includes local business owners, community leaders, even out-county firefighters.

We want our voices heard loud and clear: The consequences are too dire. The importance is too clear.